Conventionally, opening/closing apparatuses that drive a slide door, which is provided at a side portion of a vehicle for passengers to get on/off, and that open/close the slide door by using a driving source such as motors, are widely known. In such an opening/closing device, on the basis of an operation from inside/outside the vehicle, a control apparatus installed in the vehicle starts the driving source, the driving force from the driving source is transmitted to an opening/closing mechanism of the slide door through an electromagnetic clutch, and the slide door is thus operated to open/close. Then, the opening/closing device is configured so that the opening/closing device can selectively be switched between an automatic opening/closing mode, in which the clutch is switched to the connected state and the slide door is opened/closed by the driving force of the driving source, and a manual opening/closing mode, in which the clutch is switched to the disconnected state so that the slide door can be manually operated by an occupant.
Meanwhile, when the manual mode is selected while the slide door is operated in the automatic opening/closing mode, the opening/closing device is switched to the manual opening/closing mode while the slide door is stopped in the middle of the operation and the electromagnetic clutch is switched to the disconnected state. Further, when an entrapment of an obstacle is detected or an ignition switch is switched off while the slide door is operated in the automatic opening/closing mode, there is a possibility that the slide door is stopped in the middle of the operation and is controlled to be switched to the manual opening/closing mode. When the door opening/closing device is switched to the manual opening/closing mode described above while the vehicle stops on a sloping ground, there is a danger that the slide door starts moving, on a self-weight basis, in an inclined direction.
In the light of the foregoing, an opening/closing control apparatus is suggested, which controls an electromagnetic clutch to repeat a connected state and a disconnected state when the door opening/closing device is switched to the manual opening/closing mode while the slide door is in a partially-opened state, in which the slide door is positioned between a fully-opened position and a fully-closed position (for example, JP3445083B). In the opening/closing control apparatus suggested above, the electromagnetic clutch repeats the connected state and the disconnected state to intermittently give a load from the driving source to the opening/closing mechanism of the slide door, therefore a rapid movement of the slide door in an inclined direction can be restricted.
Meanwhile, in such an opening/closing control apparatus, the electromagnetic clutch is controlled to necessarily repeat the connected state and the disconnected state when the opening/closing control apparatus is switched to the manual opening/closing mode while the slide door is in the partially-opened state. Therefore, the number of operations of the electromagnetic clutch increases. Accordingly, durability of the electromagnetic clutch needs to be set higher, which leads to an increase in cost of products. In addition, the increase of the number of operations of the electromagnetic clutch tends to cause higher battery consumption and tends to cause a generation of annoying operational noise.
A need thus exists for a control apparatus for opening/closing a vehicle door, which can restrict, with a reduced number of operations of an electromagnetic clutch, a movement of a vehicle door, on a self-weight basis, when the vehicle door is in a partially-opened state. The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and provides such a control apparatus for opening/closing a vehicle door.